Avalon: The Six Keys of Destruction

2.2

I hope you guys enjoy this chapter =)

      The Crimson Roses swiftly packed all their belongings onto Crimson's carriage that she received as a reward from one of her commissions. Now it served as the main means of transportation for the party. The group hopped in, while Crimson took the reins.

      "Let's go Ember, we have a lot of land to travel today." Crimson gently stroked the black mane of her warhorse, specially bred by the Tiger clan for strength and speed. With a simple flick of her wrist, Ember dashed out of the northern gate and raced towards Rache, leaving the capital to be a fading image of the horizon. If Crimson pushed Ember to ride at full speed, they could reach Rache by noon, but Crimson decided to let Ember pull the carriage at a brisk gallop to conserve his energy.

      "It's been a while since a commission took us this far from the Capital," Eirina sighed wistfully, as she laid her head against the carriage's window sill, allowing the fresh wind of the vast valleys to blow through her hair. She smiled in contentment as she could smell the wild berries and fragrant flowers that could only grow on Aqulian-rich soil. "We should do this more often."

      "As much as I love Ember," Lance muttered as he mindlessly sharpened his short swords over and over again. "Can't he go faster?" They were taking too long to get to Rache, and he knew that Ember could go faster.

      "Hey, Ember is doing his best! He's faster than any Aquilian horse you humans can breed!" Aylin pipped in defending the majestic black horse. "No offense to your horses." She squealed quietly at Arkadian, realizing what she shouted in front of the prince of the Human nation.

      "Don't you folks have spacial transport hubs? Why don't you use those?" Hemuk stated as he comfortably leaned against his large shield.

      "We do, but those are mainly for transporting crops, we don't have the technology to transport people yet," Arkadian replied.

      "That's absurd! If this was Varaelda, we could teleport to Rache in an instant," Hemuk scoffed.

      "Have they truly perfected live teleportation?" Aylin asked, her curiosity piqued. She has never been to Varaelda yet, all she knows about it is from the Captain's stories.

      "I...I don't know. I haven't been home in ages, but I wouldn't be surprised if they had." Hemuk mumbled out dejectedly, his relaxed nature tensing.

      "It would be great if we could teleport directly to Rache. We could catch our enemies off guard," Lance said as he held out his sword seeing how sharp the edges were. "And pick them off one by one." He said bitterly.

      "Why are you in such a hurry to get to Rache?" Aylin glanced cautiously at her teammate, she could practically smell the low simmering anger coming off of him.

      "Rache is my hometown," Lance mutters out. He wished that the rumors were false, but it seemed like his home was invaded by the creatures of Eris, then ransacked by those disgusting bandits!

       "The city was evacuated, so I'm sure your folks are safe." Eirina tried to comfort her teammate with a light reassurance. "Why hasn't the Aurean military taken back Rache yet, since it's a major city?" She directed the question to the prince.

      "Yes, Rache is an important city for Aurum and typically it would be the first priority to take back the city after the evacuation of its citizens. However, due to the recent surge of activity from the Eris Forest, the Aurean military had to increase their numbers patrolling the Forest borders." Arkadian explained the basis of Aurean current state to the others